Every once in awhile comes along an article that uses food as a lens into city history, food culture and just a damn good story. So that’s why we were pleased to see this excellent piece in the Times by Vincent Mallozzi. (Hell, we were actually green with envy over the scoop.) It’s about the 23-inch rolling pin owned–and very much used–by Harry Rosenblum, who owns The Brooklyn Kitchen at 100 Frost Street in Williamsburg.
In Brooklyn, they’ll apply their approach to seven courses of what’s in season here and now, and what their host Sweet Deliverance has told us about the menu is pretty mind-blowing. They’re making homemade Japanese pickles with kirby cukes, watermelon radishes, Asian turnips and their own King Trumpet mushrooms plus persimmon/star anise/honey cinnamon syrup for the cocktails (whiskey, lemon soda, citrus bitters and a cognac float); while the SloMo boys are doing stuff like housemade ramen noodles with short rib stock, sake steamed clams and smoked shishito peppers and Japanese fried chicken. It’s $90 for seven courses, and that includes beer and sake too. Our biggest worry is how many nights to go.
Our publishers just alerted us to a sweet deal, especially for those currently struggling on their holiday gift lists, double especially for those of us who haven’t even started. If you order a new subscription to Edible Brooklyn (only $28 a year!) before December 1st–or to Edible East End or even Edible Manhattan–they’ll kick in a free copy of Edible Brooklyn: The Cookbook. You can find more details right here.
No self-respecting lover of refined brine or fan of the fermented is going to be anywhere but New Amsterdam Market tomorrow, when the first annual Peck Slip Pickle Festival brings nearly two dozen producers of pickled and fermented foods to South Street Seaport between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. (That’s just over the East River, people: You can leave the borough for just one day, especially if it’s to eat). The event also includes a competition for amateur picklers–judging at 4:30–and as luck would have it, we happened to stumble into a sneak peek of the entries as they were laid out at Brooklyn Kitchen for tasting by a special panel of judges that included Rick Field of Rick’s Picks (the city’s prince of new pickling) Harry Rosenblum of The Brooklyn Kitchen (where you can take a class taught by Field and then buy everything you need to practice what you learn at home) and Robert LaValva, who spearheads New Amsterdam Market and the blossoming food, farm and market scene near South Street Seaport.
If you’ve been following our blog the past few weeks you’ve read all about the really stellar series of dinner symposiums Bubby’s has been running on American foodways past and present. The next to last is on lard, and is extra-dear to the heart of Ron Silver, a co-owner of the restaurant famous for its fried chicken and pies. Beyond some those (and killer biscuits and fried clams) you can expect beyond some very serious discussion of the fat from Silver himself. If you like lard, you won’t want to miss it.
Dig this helpful guide from the folks at GrowNYC, the non-profit group behind city Greenmarkets. It’s a list of which of their farmers citywide are selling turkeys, plus how to order them and where you can pick them up. And if it’s heritage breeds and pastured poultry you’re after, don’t forget your mail-order friends at Heritage Foods USA, whose office is based in Williamsburg. There’s also the Meat Hook (Williamsburg), Marlow & Daughters (Southside), and Fleischer’s Grass-Fed and Organic Meats (Park Slope), too.
Tomorrow night at 6:30 we’re going to co-host a potluck at The Brooklyn Kitchen in Williamsburg. It’s in honor of their fifth anniversary, and we glommed on to the party, since we just came out with a cookbook. We’re trying to lure not just each of you to come and bring a dish to share, but also to convince the ever-amazing pickler Rick Field to come and to bring his Polish Potato Potage with Brined Croutons, featured on page 36 of Edible Brooklyn: The Cookbook and made with his People’s Pickle.
Most of us in Brooklyn have heard of Sakura Matsuri, the Japan-centric spring festival the Botanic Garden hosts each May when the cherry blossoms bloom. But you can have a Matsuri in fall too, and that’s exactly what’s going down at Brooklyn Brewery on November 10, thanks to the non-profit Gohan Society, which promotes Japan’s culinary culture here in the States.
Over the past few years we’ve watched as parents and teachers with a knack for turning parking lots into produce launch a slew of mini farm projects at New York City Public schools. One of those is Nora Painten, the Carroll Gardens teacher who is starting an $8,000 square foot garden project (complete with a chicken coop) in Brownsville with help from students and teachers at nearby P.S. 323. We hosted the teacher/farmer on our HeritageRadioNetwork.com show Monday night, where she spoke about how she scored a contract to garden on the land from the city and is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Brownsville Student Farm Project’s first spring in 2012.
In honor of the publication of the Edible Brooklyn cookbook and the fifth-year anniversary of The Brooklyn Kitchen–one of the featured contributors in the book, naturally–we’re inviting you to a potluck Wednesday night, November 9. It’ll be held in the classrooms at the Kitchen at 100 Frost Street, right at Meeker Avenue in Williamsburg, and starts at 6:30 p.m.
Don’t miss Wednesday night’s free potluck party at Brooklyn Kitchen in honor of the brand new Edible Brooklyn cookbook, which hit local bookshelves last month. In addition to the party (it starts at 6:30 p.m. at the shop, which is at 100 Frost Street in Williamsburg) here’s a list of other bookstores where you can find us:
The winner of our latke recipe contest will have not just the honor of showing off his or her crispy creation at the event on December 19 alongside some of the city’s best chefs–tickets on sale now–but will also score the brand-new Breville 5-quart die-cast stand mixer at left. It doesn’t come with a grater attachment, sadly, but it can make some sweet cookies. In fact, check out this demo by Momofuku Milk chef Christina Tosi.
